lOOKS
147
I
am
emboldened to ask because Mailer has had the chivalry
to reprint from
Dissent,
where the discussion first appeared, not
only Malaquais' criticism but also another and very effective one
led by Ned Polsky who argues that Mailer is romanticizing the
hipster, especially when he tries to create a philosophy of Hip. Far
from being a figure of violence, daring and freedom, the hipster,
says
Polsky, is really the ultimate in self-estrangement: inhibited,
puny in orgasm, weak in mind and feeling, driven in behavior,
caring mostly to be left alone by the cops, and whatever else, hardly
a force that for
good
or evil can shake the society in which he
hides. Put another way, it seems likely that our mass society, with
its astonishing capacity for absorbing friend and foe, Ph. D and
junkie, may well succeed in domesticating the hipster, if it hasn't
already, and in transforming his world into a docile sub-culture
regularly visited by social workers, anthropologists and tourists.
Meanwhile, I think Mailer is in danger of being carried away
by
the fertility and brilliance of
his
own metaphors. Using cancer
as a synecdoche for the spread of social rot, he begins to talk as
if
he knows it to be psychosomatic in origin. Hunting for an emblem
of energy in the hipster, he seems at one rather shocking point in
"The White Negro" to be praising the violence of a hoodlum who
beats up an old storekeeper. Even
if
one puts aside the ethical ques–
tion, which certainly should not be done for long, this kind of
thing can be very dangerous to writers. They are professionally in–
fatuated with language and therefore prone to develop treacherous
powers of self-delusion and self-incitement, as is shown only too
strongly by the experience of the many twentieth century writers
who have become fascinated with violence.
Mailer is now beginning a new and very long novel, of which
two sections--one a series of windy speculations, the other a de–
scription of sexual battle that pulses with outrageous humor and
energy-appear in
Advertisements.
He is trying to enter new areas
of experience and feeling, and the problem will be to what extent
his
ideas will help him to see and to what extent they will pre–
determine his vision. Perhaps, as one wishes him luck, it will not
seem captious to add the hope that, even as he tries to embody his
new perceptions in fiction, he will also allow some play to his con-
